Wednesday, 28 December 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We hope that you all had a lovely Christmas, and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year from everyone on the Challenge Blog Team. May 2017 bring you health, happiness, and lots of crafting!

This week, we are announcing the winners of Challenge Twenty-Nine. The winner of the £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Janny, whose project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Janny, we hope that you enjoy your prize.

Please email Lesley on lesley@chocolatebaroque,com so that she can organise your voucher. You can also display our winner's badge on your blog, details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page.

The Top Three this month have been chosen by the Design Team, who have had a tough time choosing from such a marvellous selection of entries. The Top Three in no particular order are:

Congratulations ladies, you can display the Top Three badge on your blogs. Details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Well done to everyone who entered, and we hope that you will join in with our current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have some more inspiration from the Design Team for you this week:

Asha's beautiful Spring themed card will remind you of the warmer days just around the corner. The image looks delightful in the challenge colours:

Magda's tag is so pretty, combining one of our new floral images and the soft background. The romantic sentiment is perfect for the approaching Valentine season:

Vronnie's card uses more of those lovely florals, beautiful colouring and a fabulous background. A card that could be used for so many occasions:

We hope that these projects will inspire you to create something for the challenge yourselves, using the current colour swatch. We will be back next week with another post and more inspiration from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing some of your entries. If you have any questions and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 21 December 2016

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your lovely comments and visits to the blog over the past month, we really appreciate your support, and love reading what you have to say. As we approach Christmas, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas from the Challenge Blog Team.

We will be announcing the winners of Challenge Twenty-Nine next week, so if you entered the challenge, be sure to check out the blog post, to see if you are the winner of our prize.

As a reminder to those of you who have visited our blog before, and for anyone who is new to the blog, our challenges are monthly, based on an inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is launched on the third Wednesday of every month. You can use any medium to create your project; inks, paints, pens, pencils, etc., as long as you stick to the colours from the colour swatch in your project. We are offering a monthly prize of £15 to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps to one lucky winner, who will be selected by Random.org from all of the entrants who have used Chocolate Baroque stamps currently available from the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps and images, but they will not be eligible for the prize. All entries will have the chance to be selected as one of our Top Three, and can then display our 'I made the Top Three at Chocolate Baroque' badge on their blogs.

We have a pretty new colour swatch for you this month, and some stunning inspiration from the Design Team, which we will be sharing over the coming weeks. Here is the colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 17th January 2017 and the winner will be announced on Wednesday January 25th 2017. Here are some projects from the Design Team:

Julie's pretty floral card uses clever shading on the background to create a sunray effect. She has created a beautiful floral border to frame her eye-catching focal flower:

Magda's beautiful card is full of texture and detail. Repeat stamping of the main flower has created the feel of flowers against a garden wall:

Finally, Claire's romantic project would make a beautiful Valentine or Anniversary card, she has created a very elegant card, especially with the added gem detail:

Thank you girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something for the challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message; details are at the end of this blog post, below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy the new challenge and look forward to seeing your projects. Happy Christmas!

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of the current challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your lovely comments throughout the month, we really appreciate your support.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the entries that we have received for the current challenge, and showcasing them on the blog. We hope that you enjoy the selection that we have chosen to share with you.

Carole has altered an old table mat, using one of our clear stamps, to create this stunning design for her Christmas table. She has been very patient to get the placement so precise, but it has been well worth the effort:

Leanne has also been altering an item ready for Christmas; she has created a super gift bag, using some of our Steampunk stamps. She has used gesso, texture paste and inks to create this colourful bag that would wow any recipient:

Gerrina has been continuing with her delightful calendar project, and created another one of her beautiful pages for this month's challenge. She originally decorated the reverse of a canvas to hold all of the pages, and this would make a beautiful gift for someone:

Janny's lovely CAS card, using one of our newest floral stamps is so elegant, and could be adapted for many different occasions:

Finally Kate's pretty floral card using the Floribunda Net image could also be used for so many occasions. She has left it without a sentiment, great for those times when you need a card in a hurry:

We have had some fabulous entries from you this month, and hope that you have enjoyed using the colours in the current colour swatch. Thank you for finding the time at this busy time of year, when you have so much else to do. Next month, our colour selection will be completely different again, and if these selections take you outside your comfort zone, then well done for stretching yourselves. Thank you to everyone else who entered the challenge this month, and we hope to see lots more entries from you before the deadline next week. There is still plenty of time to enter, and you can find a link in this post.

If you have any questions regarding the challenges, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for the wonderful entries that have been coming in for the challenge so far. We hope that you are enjoying the current colour scheme and the inspiration provided by the Design Team each week for you. We hope that if you have not entered already, you will try and find a bit of time amongst your Christmas preparations and join in with the challenge. We encourage all levels of crafter from beginners just starting out, to advanced, and the winner is always chosen at random, so everyone has an equal chance of winning the prize. You can add your entry to the link in this post.

We have more Design Team inspiration for you this week, both on a floral theme. Magda has created a pretty ATC, using our newest floral stamps:

Both of these designs are sure to remind you of warmer days, and chase away the Winter blues. We hope that these projects will inspire you to rummage through your own crafty supplies and create something for the challenge.

We are taking the opportunity this week to meet another member of the Design Team. Dominike is going to introduce herself to you, so that you can get to know her a little better.

Dominike writes:

Hello,

My name is Dominique, Dominike for my artwork. I am a French self taught Artist living with my husband in Poitiers, between Paris and La Rochelle where I was born.

In 'another life' I managed a mayors' association and was the coach for elected representatives.

Craft has always been my passion for a long time. I used to experiment wth rubber stamps ten years ago when I was unemployed. Then it became a habit. My art is scrap to mixed media. The work I prefer is to make books and different things with fabrics. I like to make greetings cards and Art Journals. My experience includes teaching mixed media art workshops across France, which has always been a great pleasure for me.

I am the mother of two children. I almost died at the birth of my first child in 1978. So, after that bad experience I looked at life with another eye. Every morning is a day more! Optimist is my first quality. I like colours, jazz and the cinema. All is necessary to make beautiful projects.

Thank you so much for your biography Dominike, it was lovely to learn more about you.

We will be back next week with another post, and more projects to share with you. If you have any questions, and cannot see the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Current Challenge

Welcome

A very warm welcome to the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We love crafting and stamping in particular and we love to share and encourage you to have a go.

We hope that you will be inspired to get your stamps inked up, make some time to play and end up with a creation you are proud to share with us all.

Please take a look around - we have tabs at the top that give you lots of information about how our challenges work and if you have any questions at all, please use the Contact page to get in touch and one of the team will get back to you.